The top 25 jobs of the future don’t even exist yet. Of course we want education to prepare people for the future workplace. The problem is that history has proven that the top jobs of one decade were non-existent jobs just a few decades earlier. This makes sense; it’s the newest skills that are in the highest demand because the older sector of the workforce cannot provide the skills based on experience.

Help your kids to learn to specialize. John-Paul Ferguson, professor at Stanford University provides a wide-sweeping summary of data that shows that people who specialize earn more money later in their career. But he also shows that very early specialization, while not necessarily correlating to higher pay early in one’s career, does correlate as a signal of future success.

Pleasure and specialization are related both in your work and your personal life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi published research about specializing in his book Flow. From that we know that when we are most engaged we are happiest, and expertise promotes engagement.

The diamond industry discovered that the link between specialized knowledge and pleasure is true for more than just our work. The Atlantic magazine shows that the history of diamond pricing is actually the history of educating the consumer about diamonds. Some consumers find pleasure in purchasing diamonds based on color, but there are a wide range of other expertise to teach consumers, like diamond shapes, that will also create a pleasurable diamond buying experience.

It’s not surprising that consumer research can inform education strategies. The point of education is to make us feel good about ourselves, and, ironically, that is also the point of consumerism.

Comments (7)

These past blog posts have been really good. I have enjoyed the view points, and the many things to learn. I think a good post can also be judged by how often the reader returns to read and think about things, and I have returned the past several days to read your words. Wonderful job!

I might add that specializing on purpose is more important than generic specialization. I have a very specialized role and was initially very engaged, but over time, the novelty of the specialization wore off. Now I am on a journey where I am learning what specialization I am actually willing and able to monetize over the long haul.

Sounds challenging if not impossible to me… we don’t know what the top jobs will be… but specialize – it’s good for you! But I totally agree with the importance of following your Passion, in fact I have seen some great examples of people who, through following their passion, developed amazing marketable skills very desirable in other areas such as analytical skills developed in geography to marketing, bird watching to data mining…
If all we are, are conduits to passion for our kids, we’ve done our job.

Additionally, I believe everybody learns differently and at a different rate. So I’m with Lisa Nielsen. If school isn’t working out, there’s even more reasons to homeschool with a curriculum that’s just “well-rounded” enough to satisfy individual needs. I envision “well-roundedness” as a spectrum to be tailored differently on different subjects of interest and need.

In fact, at all times the task of schools was not to give certain information, but to teach people to collect and analyze information. Obviously, that the information which is given in schools and colleges become obsolete after a few years out of college / school. So the only hope that students will get the skills of self development during this time.